02 December 2016

The CBA and Middle Market Teams Like the Orioles

With an expiring Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) this
past week, Major League Baseball and its Players Association avoided any
contentious controversy by agreeing to a new deal within hours of its deadline.
The mid-90s labor strike in Major League Baseball is considerably in the rear
view and we can once again look forward to five uninterrupted years of
baseball, as the new terms hold through the 2021 season.

The Orioles remain a clear cut mid-market team, though
payroll has certainly expanded and even landed the organization in the top ten for
Opening Day payrolls in 2016. Much of that rise to over $147 million was due to
Chris Davis’ mammoth seven year guarantee at $23 million per. Still, cut that Angelos-driven contract out and the team would have sat 15th – again, middle of the market.

So what impact will the new CBA have on baseball? How about
on the Orioles, a team that spends heavier than the Oaklands and Tampa Bays of
the world but won’t soon be matching offers from the Los Angeles’s and New Yorks?

Three possible impact points of the new CBA on the Baltimore
Orioles (in no particular order):

Disabled list

Old rule: Minimum stay was 15 days (except for the seven-day
concussion list).

New rule: Minimum stay is 10 days.

While the Orioles of the past couple of years have utilized
the Disabled List (DL) in a number of ways, often to stash a pitcher between
starts on a long layoff who has a bum ankle or forearm, the creativity at teams’
hands now is increased – specifically by 33%. A shortened DL stint will lead to
an innumerable increase in players directed to the sidelines across baseball.
Now those eight day hamstring pulls won’t take up a roster spot, and skipping a
pitcher’s turn in the rotation won’t require creativity to free up a roster
space anymore – short term shoulder soreness will suddenly creep up quite
commonly with starting pitchers, if I had a wager in the grand scheme.

Interestingly enough, this aligns with the 10-day rule
required of players sent down to the minor leagues who cannot be summoned back
to the Major League roster for at least 10 days except for a DL replacement.
With this change, the Orioles won’t have to option their best starting pitcherto High-A again and rather can tell the league he strained his quadricep and
needs to hit the 10-day DL.

Roster construction

Old rules: 25-man active roster, up to 40 active players in
September

New rules: 25-man active roster, up to 40 active players in
September

This is about the lack of a change more than an
actual “impact point” that comes from new language of the agreement.

Buck Showalter and Dan Duquette, as hinted at above, are
masterminds of roster construction, so they say. They utilize each of the 25
spots for unique needs and rumors of an added 26th roster spot in
the future would have only increased flexibility in that strategy.

But alas, the 25-man roster remains and Nolan Reimold’s
inevitable addition this offseason will continue to wrap up one of those spots
for years to come.

Draft-pick compensation

Old rule: A team signing a player that was given a qualifying offer by his former team but surrender a first round pick in the following season's draft. (The top 10 first-round picks were protected.)

New rule: If a club hasn't exceeded the luxury tax threshold and signs another team's player
who received the qualifying offer, it will surrender a third-round pick. (

Teams that have exceeded the threshold will surrender second- and fifth-round picks, plus $1 million in international pool money)

The Orioles have not and likely will not soon exceed the
luxury tax threshold, so the new rule would mean the team’s future late Spring
Training additions of the next Ubaldo Jimenez, Nelson Cruz and Yovani Gallardo
will only cost the club a third-round pick and later – no more first-round
selection on the line.

Important to note that these rules take effect starting next
season, so it will still take a sacrificial first rounder to unite Jose
Bautista with Darren O’Day this winter.

In reality, though, the CBA details a selection of changes
that will make no major or immediate impact on the Orioles but rather on the
top spenders and bottom feeders of the league:

Luxury tax threshold goes up

Old rule: The threshold in 2016 was $189 million.

New rule: It increases to $195 million in 2017 and goes up
to $210 million by 2021.

Not really in Peter Angelos’s wheelhouse to spend up to
these amounts and even pay a major tax for exceeding those imposed limits.
Honestly never thought this would even come close to being a discussion point,
though ownership ponied up significant cash for Chris Davis and put themselves
in the high payroll conversation.

No international draft

Old rule: No draft. The Phillies had the highest
international pool money last season at $5.6 million, and teams could exceed
their allotted money but would pay a penalty.

New rule: Still no draft. Pool money will reportedly be
hard-capped in the $5 million to $6 million range per team.

Dan Duquette was napping when these terms were being
hammered out.

Slot money goes down for No. 1 pick in the U.S. draft

Old rule: The No. 1 overall pick in 2016 was slotted at $9.015
million.

New rule: The No. 1 overall pick in 2017 will be slotted at
$7.4 million.

Less discrepancy in pick values spread out over the first 10
rounds of the draft, but the Orioles continue their push to a bottom-20 pick in
the coming years of drafts that won’t see a major impact here.

And if the team does eventually sell off as Manny Machado’s
inevitable Yankee contract comes to fruition, there is a non-zero chance they
find another Matt Hobgood laying around to avoid the high slot value in the
first round.

The season will last four days longer

Old rule: 162 games!

New rule: Still 162 games!

No real winner or loser here among teams. Rich teams can’t
buy days off and poor teams can’t sell theirs. Maybe next CBA.

As Tim Kurkjian concluded over on ESPN, baseball executives
and the MLBPA were wise to work this out on peaceful terms. The game is now a
10-plus billion dollar industry in which owners would be to stop reeling in such hauls of cash and
players would be frivolous to stop earning any money at all (beyond those with
endorsement deals).

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Contributors

Jon Shepherd - Founder/Editor@CamdenDepotStarted Camden Depot in the summer of 2007. By day, a toxicologist and by night a baseball analyst. His work is largely located on this site, but may pop up over at places like ESPN or Baseball Prospectus.

Matt Kremnitzer - Assistant Editor@mattkremnitzerMatt joined Camden Depot in early 2013. His work has been featured on ESPN SweetSpot and MASNsports.com.

Patrick Dougherty - Writer@pjd0014Patrick joined Camden Depot in the fall of 2015, following two years writing for Baltimore Sports & Life. He is interested in data analysis and forecasting, and cultivates those skills with analysis aimed at improving the performance of the Orioles (should they ever listen).

Nate Delong - Writer@OriolesPGNate created and wrote for Orioles Proving Ground prior to joining Camden Depot in the middle of 2013. His baseball resume includes working as a scorer for Baseball Info Solutions and as a Video Intern for the Baltimore Orioles. His actual resume is much less interesting.

Matt Perez - Writer@FanOfLaundryMatt joined Camden Depot after the 2013 season. He is a data analyst/programmer in his day job and uses those skills to write about the Orioles and other baseball related topics.

Joe Reisel - WriterJoe has followed the Norfolk Tides now for 20 seasons. He currently serves as a Tides GameDay datacaster for milb.com and as a scorer for Baseball Info Solutions (BIS). He is computer programmer/analyst by day.

Joe Wantz - WriterJoe is a baseball and Orioles fanatic. In his spare time, he got his PhD in political science and works in data and analytics in Washington DC.